


No One Else

by aeternamente



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M, Regret, job offer, lydia's crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-27 14:04:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeternamente/pseuds/aeternamente
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All she could think was that she wanted more than anything to be the person he saw in her.</p><p>Also, she really, really, really wanted to kiss him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One Else

**Author's Note:**

> I've gotten really good at writing fics that are canonballed within minutes. So of course, I wrote this minutes before the introduction of Domino. But I could still see things playing out something like this. Basically I’ve been trying to figure out how Lizzie will get to the place where she believes she has no chance with Darcy.

“Lizzie, I was wondering if I could speak with you…” Darcy said, predictably walking in as she was filming (did he do that on purpose?).

“Of course!” Lizzie said with the smile that never seemed to leave her face lately when Darcy was around. “Please, sit down.”

He did so, punctuating his sitting with his customary nervous swaying back and forth, as if settling into the seat. “So, I’m sure you’ve heard about our new project?”

Lizzie’s smile widened. “Oh yes,” she enthused. “It’s so exciting, working with web content and YouTube. I mean, I’ve always found YouTube so…”

“Fascinating, I know,” he said, looking down as he spoke, but glancing up at her at the tail end of his utterance. It was so freaking adorable. “Actually, that’s what I was hoping to speak with you about. We… haven’t yet named anyone to lead this project and I was… I was wondering if you would like to do it.”

She almost didn’t pay attention to the second adorable upward glance, as she was overwhelmed with a heady, tingly combination of shock, disbelief, giddiness, and in the back of it all, fear. “Are—are you offering me a job?” she managed to stutter.

He nodded. “Yes,” he said, “if you would like to take it. After you’ve finished your degree, of course.”

“But I’m not qualified to do anything like that,” she protested. “I have no work experience!”

“On the contrary, you’re perfectly qualified,” he countered. “You run a successful video blog, you have an impressive internet following, and YouTube has been the primary focus of your scholarship. I hear you know more about it than anyone else here.”

“You make it sound more impressive than it is.”

Darcy shook his head. “I’m not one to exaggerate.” He looked down into his lap again. “Look,” he said, “part of my job is to be able to recognize talent when I see it, and _you_ , Lizzie Bennet,” he leaned in and looked her directly in the eye, “are perhaps the most talented person I’ve ever met. There’s no one else I would rather have.”

He was giving her  _that look_ , that heart-stopping combination of awe, admiration, and incredulity, as if he couldn’t believe someone as amazing as her was sitting next to him. And all she could think was that she wanted more than anything to be the person he saw in her.

Also, she really, really, really wanted to kiss him.

It was his fault, really, with his clear blue stare, and his lips slightly parted. She could not stop herself, even if she wanted to.

The kiss was not particularly deep or passionate, but long, lingering, and still. She could feel the heat if not the pressure of his hands hovering uncertainly at her waist. She pulled back, wondering if she had just made a huge mistake.

He raised an eyebrow. “You still haven’t answered my question,” he said.

Mortification rolled over her like an ocean current. She was finding it difficult to breathe—everything in her was numbness and horror.  _Damn it Lizzie,_  she berated herself,  _he was trying to offer you a job and you had to go turn it into something else. What must he think of you now?_

“I—I’m sorry that was… unprofessional.”

She could hear his intake of breath as he prepared to say something she was sure she didn’t want to hear, but he was interrupted by the ringing of Lizzie’s phone. She pulled it out of her purse and looked at the name on the screen.

“It’s Charlotte,” she said. “I have to—”

“Of course,” Darcy said with a polite bow of the head.

 

* * *

 

Lizzie barely noticed the comfort of the wide, roomy first class seat that Darcy had insisted on paying for. She had missed all the warning signs—they all had. How had it never occurred to her that leaving Lydia to make her own decisions would also leave her lonely, isolated, the perfect victim for an opportunistic asshole like George Wickham?

In general, she sucked at being a human being. She had abandoned her sister when she most needed her, and she’d ruined any prospect of a future relationship with Darcy in any capacity. Of course, she should have known she couldn’t have both—Darcy the boss, Darcy the romantic interest, who was nothing like what she thought he was, and everything she thought he could never be.

But she had lost him now, precisely when she’d come to fully appreciate his worth. Somehow, her current sorry state seemed even more pitiful given that she had just hours ago been on the brink of something life-changing, that could have been the making of her career—and also the making of the most awkward job situation ever, in which she would have been inconveniently in love with her boss.

Yes, she had no illusions about that now—she was in love with William Darcy. Not that it mattered any more. What mattered was her sister and her family and doing whatever she could to make things right.


End file.
